Chapter 135: Corporate Headquarters
Chapter 135: Corporate Headquarters
As expected, Mizawa and Asuka accepted You Xuan's invitation, just as he had anticipated.
After revealing the "Ritual of the Machine Angel" and "Cyber Dragon" cards, which he had modified to perfection and happened to be their respective cards, they were both shocked but didn't hesitate to join him on his journey.
Card imprinting wasn't just about knowledge and skill; it also depended on one's destiny power. Some upperclassmen might have a slight edge in terms of knowledge at the moment, but when it came to destiny power, they often fell short against the original characters.
Mizawa, the top student, excelled in learning anything quickly. In the latter part of the original story, he shifted his focus to researching Duel Physics and embarked on a scientific path. To be honest, You Xuan always felt that Mizawa was naturally more suited for scientific research than dueling.
Asuka, too, gave off a similar vibe. When it came to career planning after graduation, she considered staying at the academy to teach and conduct research. Sometimes, You Xuan wondered if they had chosen to focus solely on research instead of dueling on the front lines, perhaps they wouldn't have suffered the same reputation damage as they did in the original story.
Moreover, when it came to card imprinting involving destiny power, You Xuan believed that involving individuals with a close connection to their decks might increase the chances of success. That's why Asuka, who had a strong connection to her Cyber Angel deck, was a more suitable candidate for the Cyber Angel project than anyone else.
Aside from the Cyber Angels, the only other decks he could think of with significant room for enhancement were the Elemental Heroes and Cyber Dragons.
The reason for temporarily setting aside the Cyber Dragon deck was that he hadn't met or interacted much with Ryou Marufuji yet. However, he might consider bringing Caesar into the fold later on. The issue with the Cyber Dragon deck was that he couldn't recall many actual cards that were significantly stronger than their animated counterparts, and creating new enhanced cards would require a whole new level of development difficulty, which might not be feasible.
Of course, his little lab had just been set up and was still in its infancy. The fact that they lacked the technical capabilities now didn't mean they wouldn't be able to overcome those challenges in the future. With time, as their team expanded and their funding and technology improved, they might not only be able to strengthen existing cards but also create entirely new deck series.
Regarding the Elemental Hero deck, the Masked Heroes in physical cards were generally much stronger than their counterparts in the original story. However, it seemed that the only Hero cards the current Judai possessed were the Elemental Heroes.
Moreover, asking Judai to conduct research was truly a difficult request. Judai was a high-destiny-power duelist who could create cards on the spot if the atmosphere was right, but in his daily life, he often skipped classes or slept through them. Asking him to take on a research role was simply impractical.
A couple of days later, You Xuan finally received news from the research team at the Kaiba Corporation.
The team leader excitedly informed him that, based on the spiritual vision clues he had provided, they had made a breakthrough in developing the Chaos Soldier deck theme and urged him to come and see it for himself.
The leader was so excited that he couldn't stop talking even as he was about to hang up the phone, insisting that they would send someone to pick him up immediately. However, You Xuan explained that he needed to request leave from the academy first, and it wouldn't hurt to rest for the night and visit the next day.
The next morning, a helicopter bearing the logo of the KC Group arrived at the academy island. You Xuan boarded the helicopter, which took him directly to the legendary dueling hotspot, the dueling capital of Domino City, where the headquarters of the Kaiba Corporation was located.
As the helicopter landed at the group's headquarters, the team leader, clad in a white lab coat, greeted You Xuan excitedly, tugging at his sleeve and pulling him inside as he enthusiastically shared the story of how their team had devoted themselves to their research day and night.
In fact, even if he hadn't said anything, You Xuan could tell from the even darker eye bags under the researcher's eyes than the last time they met that they had been working tirelessly.
You Xuan wanted to tell his colleague to take it easy and not overwork himself, as he would be relying on him for future Chaos enhancements, and a sudden death from overworking would be unfortunate. However, the leader seemed to be brimming with energy. He quickly led You Xuan to their laboratory, where a group of researchers seemed to have been eagerly awaiting their arrival.
You Xuan noticed one researcher immediately get up from his seat and walk to the back of the lab, toward a cylindrical device on the wall that You Xuan couldn't quite recognize at first glance.
The leader and another researcher each took out a key and inserted them into two different keyholes, turning them in opposite directions. With a click, the mechanism unlocked, and a password panel slid out.
The two researchers then entered their respective passwords and underwent iris and fingerprint authentication. Only then did the cylindrical device start to rumble and rotate slowly, sliding outward.
Inside were several sealed cards.
"The testing grounds are ready," he added.
You Xuan took the card and examined it. Indeed, it was the card he had described before.
[World-Opening Knight, Level 4, ATK: 500, DEF: 2000]
In simple terms, using this card as a Ritual material to summon "Chaos Soldier" granted it two effects. Once per turn, it could banish an opponent's monster from the game. Additionally, if it destroyed an opponent's monster in battle, it could attack once more.
Similar to the effect of "Grand Opening," but even stronger. "Grand Opening" couldn't attack during the turn "Dimension Slash" was used, but if this card was used as a Ritual summon for Chaos Soldier, there would be no attack restriction even after using the banishing effect.
This card was Light-attribute, and there was another with a similar effect that was Dark-attribute.
[Twilight Knight, Level 4, ATK: 500, DEF: 2000]
Like World-Opening Knight, it could also be used as a Ritual material to grant "Chaos Soldier" additional effects. The first effect was also "Dimension Slash," allowing the user to banish one of the opponent's monsters.
The second effect allowed the user to randomly banish one of the opponent's cards from their hand. However, the banished card would return to the opponent's hand during their next End Phase.
If both of these cards were used as Ritual materials to summon Chaos Soldier, that Chaos Soldier would possess the abilities to banish the opponent's monster, make an additional attack, or banish a hand card.
This would undoubtedly make it an incredibly powerful monster in the current dueling world, allowing the once-underwhelming Chaos Soldier, who only had a ceremonial three-thousand ATK, to finally live up to its legendary title.
In addition, the new Ritual Spell Cards that You Xuan had described last time had also been developed, and there were two of them.
[Super Soldier Ritual], a Ritual Spell Card exclusive to Chaos Soldier. Furthermore, while this card is in the graveyard, by banishing this card and one Light-attribute and one Dark-attribute monster from the game, you can Special Summon one ["Chaos Soldier"] Ritual Monster from your hand, ignoring the Summoning conditions.
In other words, while this card is in the graveyard, it can reduce the Summoning conditions of any "Chaos Soldier" Ritual Monster in your hand to be the same as "Grand Opening."
[Super Soldier's Bud], a Ritual Spell that lets you select one Light-attribute and one Dark-attribute monster from your hand and deck, respectively, to use as Ritual materials for the Ritual Summon of a "Chaos Soldier." It is currently the most potent Ritual Spell in this archetype.
Creating these new cards out of thin air was much more challenging than enhancing existing cards from the original story, and it was only possible with the help of this top-notch team under Kaiba's employ.
You Xuan had also revealed some information about new Chaos Soldier support cards, but when he inquired, the team leader expressed that they were still experimenting, but things weren't going smoothly.
This was consistent with what You Xuan had learned during his card creation process—the more potent a monster, the more difficult it was to imprint. Even this elite team had only managed to develop lower-level support monsters and Magic/Trap Cards.
It seemed that creating a powerful deck core wasn't going to be easy.
The research team had eagerly invited him over to perform a Ritual Summon using the new cards with the help of his Chaos Soldier spirit partner, collect data, and make further adjustments.
This was, of course, no difficulty for You Xuan—it was as simple as performing a military martial arts routine in front of a Duel Disk.
After assisting with the tests, You Xuan returned to the control room from the testing area, where he found Kei had already arrived.
"It looks like the development is going well. Thank you," Kei said with a smile. "When these new achievements are made public, they'll undoubtedly be groundbreaking and shock the academic world once again."
The two exchanged pleasantries as per usual, and Kei quickly cut to the chase: "Later, I'll take you to see our company's inventory. Of course, don't get your hopes up too high. We don't have everything in stock, so don't expect ultra-rare cards like the Black Magician or Red-Eyes Black Dragon."
"It's fine, I just want to take a look," You Xuan replied with a smile.
"Oh, and about that surprise I mentioned before."
Kei smiled mysteriously.
"The 'Link System' I told you about last time is almost ready for testing. Want to give it a try?"
(End of Chapter)
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